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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23522854">The Perfect Crime</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobbiewickham/pseuds/bobbiewickham'>bobbiewickham</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>X-ameron [13]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Les Misérables - Victor Hugo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 14:33:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>598</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23522854</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobbiewickham/pseuds/bobbiewickham</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Bahorel and Prouvaire steal a flower.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>X-ameron [13]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1669762</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Recs from the Watchalong Room</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Perfect Crime</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/PilferingApples/gifts">PilferingApples</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written to fulfill a prompt requesting Bahorel, Prouvaire, and "a little light crime."</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Ow,” said Bahorel, as he banged into yet another doorframe. He tightened his grip on the mahogany armoire he was transporting through the house of a prosperous banker with a taste for rare paintings and rarer flowers.</p><p>Prouvaire, staggering under the weight of the other half of the armoire, poked his head around the side. “All right?”</p><p>“Yes, yes, I’m fine.” Since they were in the guise of hired men, in the house of a gentleman they intended to rob, Bahorel refrained from wishing aloud that Prouvaire had picked some other scheme to ask for Bahorel’s help with. Preferably a scheme that didn’t involve lifting heavy furniture.</p><p>But Prouvaire had his heart set on the rare and legendary Violets of Io, brought from the Greek island where Io was said to have wept and Zeus to have changed her tears to violets. A very poor consolation, if you asked Bahorel. First she has to escape Zeus’s jealous wife, when Io never even asked for Zeus’s attentions in the first place–and then all Zeus can do is transform her to a beast and change her tears to violets? An unimpressive display from the so-called king of the gods. But then, that was typical of kings. </p><p>M. Truffite had some violets in his hothouse, which he had ordered shipped from Greece. Of course he didn’t truly <i>believe</i> they were the violets of myth, or the descendants of the same, because that would be much too fun a belief for a banker to possess. But the story still gave the violets a certain cachet, as did the obscene price he’d paid for them.</p><p>Prouvaire’s goals were modest. He and Bahorel would enter the Truffite home, with the help of some workmen who were carrying heavy mahogany furniture for the master bedroom and were only too happy to pretend Bahorel and Prouvaire were of their number, if Bahorel and Prouvaire would do their share of lifting. Then he would slip into the hothouse and uproot just one violet, to take home and put in a pot. Just one, though Truffite had an entire trough full of them. He wouldn’t miss it.</p><p>Which was a shame; Bahorel didn’t see why Prouvaire wouldn’t just take the lot. But Prouvaire had insisted he would only take one. “He’s gone to considerable effort to obtain and care for them–”</p><p>“–what effort? He had his secretary do it, and you know it–”</p><p>“–and if I leave them here, why, their influence may improve Truffite’s sensibility.”</p><p>Bahorel did not share Prouvaire’s notions regarding the <i>influence</i> of violets, but he respected them, and so he shut his mouth.</p><p>Getting the violet took only a moment. Bahorel adjusted the position of the armoire, while Prouvaire dashed into the hothouse they’d passed on their way in, and came back breathless and with smudged hands. Bahorel gave him a kerchief.</p><p>As the workmen milled about to get paid, Bahorel and Prouvaire sidled off. “Stop pulling it out to talk to it!” Bahorel put his hand over Prouvaire’s breast-pocket. “It can wait until you get home.”</p><p>Prouvaire sighed. “You’re right, but I don’t want her to get lonely.”</p><p>At his apartment, Prouvaire fussed about, putting the violet in a pot painted blue with pink sunbursts, singing idly all the while. Bahorel’s muscles were screaming with pain, but he felt it was entirely worth it.</p><p>He learned the full truth of that the next morning, when the headlines appeared:</p><p>PRICELESS FLOWER STOLEN FROM PROMINENT CITIZEN</p><p>CRIMINAL GANG HEADED BY RUTHLESS MASTERMIND SUSPECTED</p><p>Bahorel was stiff and sore, but he gave a diabolical grin.</p>
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